Despair

One

What is Despair?

There are two sins that kill hope: despair and presumption.

The sin of despair is a choice, not a feeling. We all feel down sometimes. We all feel discouraged. We all feel tempted to give up. That’s not the sin of despair. That is the feeling of despair and that is a temptation, but temptation is not a sin. 

The sin of despair is the choice not to seek God or do spiritual things.

Let’s put this back in the context of hope.

Hope is the desire for God, a hunger for God and Heaven that causes us to do the things to possess God (like prayer, Mass, confession, to learn the faith and discuss it and try to get rid of vice and become virtuous and loving.) That’s hope. But when we stuff ourselves with junk, then we are not hungry for God.

Having no hunger or thirst for God or spiritual things is called sloth or acedia. Sloth means I have no desire, no taste, no hunger, or interest in God. So, I’m not going to pursue God. I’m not going to think or talk about spiritual things, I’m not going to pray or go to Mass or anything. That is despair.

Despair is the choice to not do anything that leads to God. The vice that causes us to feel like we don’t want spiritual and religious things, that’s sloth. Sloth then leads us to make the choice not to do them and that’s despair. That’s why sloth, acedia, and despair kill hope. It kills the desire for God that causes the choice not to seek Him. 

Two

The cause of sloth and despair

God designed us to desire doing something worthwhile with our lives and God made us to delight in the good things like God, good health and work and relationships and truth and beauty. We’re supposed to desire these and delight in them. But the world gives us a different message. When we are young and as we grow up, the only measure or metric the world gives us for happiness seems to be achievement (which is measured by money), the pleasure that comes through the five senses like shows and video, music, food, alcohol, drugs, sex and or whatever gives us an adrenaline or dopamine rush.

This is what we call materialism, not owning a bunch of stuff but rather, thinking that happiness is found in achievement and pleasure and not in God. But, what happens if we get hooked on these?

Three

Symptoms of Despair 

So, God designed us to desire and go after a life of significance, of doing good for others and delighting in genuinely good things. But when this gets twisted up, we spend our lives seeking our importance based on money and seeking pleasure and these get turned into two things: busyness and entertainment. And once you’re hooked on those, then you just stuff yourself with junk.

Well, it’s pretty simple. Once you stuff yourself with the junk of this world, it’s no wonder you have no hunger for God, and that is sloth or acedia. Rember, when you don’t hunger for God you make the choice not to seek him and that is despair. Despair kills hope. 

We’ve all had the experience of not feeling well and wondering what is wrong so we put our symptoms into Google to see what the problem might be. Well, the two symptoms of acedia and despair, are busyness and entertainment.

I mean you know you have fallen into sloth and despair when you are fleeing from busyness to entertainment and back again. 

We have these moments when we think, “Oh my gosh, I need to do something with my life. Which makes us get busy. Then we say, “Oh my gosh, this is pointless, I hate this. What can I do to enjoy my few remaining moments, hours, years?” Then we turn to entertainment – be it news, sports, shows…whatever.

Again, we have the good God-given desire to do something worthwhile with our lives and to delight in the truly good things of life like doing good for others in work, or relationships or truth and beauty. But those get turned into busyness, to-do lists, bank accounts, kids’ activities and entertainment. 

We know we suffer from sloth and despair when we try to find relief from busyness in entertainment and then relief from entertainment in busyness. Back and forth we go. 

Have you had enough of this ride? Are you ready to get off?

Four

Cut out the junk 

Well, if you are stuffed with things that don’t make you happy, busyness and entertainment, and then you wonder, “why do I have so little appetite for God and spiritual things or no time for them, which means no hunger,” it’s because we are stuffed with junk!

The only way to try to cultivate a hunger, a desire for God that will lead to seeking and feeding on God (which is hope), is to cut out the junk food of the soul so you hunger and thirst for God more. 

Then you will see, “Hey, that was a lot of junk I was putting in my soul. All those activities, those tasks, I didn’t need to be doing those things, my kids didn’t need to be doing all those things. And that entertainment, that was worse than a waste of time!

“You know what I would really like, I would like something that matters. So why am I doing all this stuff that doesn’t need to be done and why am I wasting time on entertainment that doesn’t satisfy?

The whole point is that both busyness and entertainment are junk food for the soul and a waste of time.

Five

Fill your soul with what it needs

As we have said, if you fill yourself with junk, when you don’t want the things that have to do with God, that’s bad, really bad, then the only solution is to remove, cut out, mortify, and sacrifice the unnecessary activity and the junk of entertainment. Then replace it with what your body and soul really need. 

Then we need to fill our souls and bodies with what they really need.

We need a relationship with God through the Eucharist and prayer. We need work, some way to do good for others. We need physical health from sleep, nourishment, and exercise. We need good relationships with family and friends and we need truth (you can’t get truth or reality from the news). We need beauty (Beauty is very different from entertainment). 

So, start by cutting out of your life anything that does not fit on that list. Then fill your day, your soul, your life with the things on that list and you will move from sloth and despair to real hope and happiness!

Cut out the junk food and feed on the good food God has provided!